Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RECYCLE IT?
Aldrich
Patience wasn’t the virtue everyone made it out to be.
Aldrich waited for Sorinah to reach out to him.
The first few days, he didn’t allow the lack of communication to weigh on him.
He remained pleasant and hopeful, even confident that Sorinah would approach the situation with her usual analytical precision, laying out the facts and recognising the mutually beneficial dynamic they shared, one too valuable to let slip away.
However, as the days passed with no word from her, his mood shifted to sullen.
The lack of communication gnawed at him, leaving a void that he tried to fill by burying himself in work. He started working longer hours, poring over documents late into the night, as if the relentless focus on tasks could drown out the unease in his mind.
Aldrich was torn between his desire to reach out to Sorinah and his commitment to honour her need for space, even though it strained his sanity.
His mood was far from pleasant; some might say it bordered on irritable.
Minor frustrations, like a misplaced file, or a delayed email, now felt like personal affronts, and he snapped at Bernard over minor inconveniences.
To make matters worse, Flavia stopped by his office on day eight. Perhaps he shouldn’t have snapped at Bernard that morning she showed up; then his assistant wouldn’t have squeezed her into Aldrich’s schedule just as his day began.
Bernard ushered her into his office, and Flavia strutted in as if she were gliding down a runway during fashion week.
She wore a high-fashion skirt suit that clung to her curves with the precision only a master tailor could execute.
The fabric shimmered subtly under the office lights.
Her heels clicked sharply against the floor, each step calculated, as though she owned the room.
Who knew why she would need a suit—she’d never worked a day in her life.
The contrast between her polished appearance and Aldrich’s fraying patience only heightened the tension in the air, stressed by the faint scent of her expensive perfume that seemed to mock his growing frustration.
“Hello, Aldrich,” she greeted him with a bright smile and an air of cheerfulness that filled the room.
He offered no matching warmth, his expression remaining neutral.
“What is it?” Aldrich asked, his focus returning to his computer.
“Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?” She stood beside the chair in front of his desk, her tone light but pointed.
“I’m sure this will be a quick visit,” he replied dismissively.
“Now, Aldrich, you could at least try to be more civil,” she chided, though her smile didn’t waver.
“The reason for your visit,” he prompted, unwilling to indulge her further.
“Well, seeing you at the club the other night got me thinking,” Flavia began, her voice trailing off as she searched for the right words.
The silence lingered, heavy and uncomfortable; he saw no reason to fill it.
“It got me thinking about how we never got closure in our relationship,” she continued, her earlier cheer faltering slightly.
“I’m going to interrupt your great reflection,” Aldrich said flatly. “We did get closure.”
She shook her head, her expression shifting to one of earnest frustration. “No, we didn’t. We didn’t sit down and talk things out, find out where it all went wrong.”
“Flavia, I’m going to remind you that you’re the one who ended our engagement,” he said, his tone edged with a hint of exasperation.
She opened her mouth to interject, but he raised his hand sharply, cutting off whatever she was about to say. This supposed “meeting” was a farce and shouldn’t have happened at all. Damn that petty Bernard—his end-of-year bonus had just taken a nosedive.
Aldrich wanted this charade of a “meeting” over and Flavia out of his office as quickly as possible.
“You had your reasons for ending it,” he said, nodding with a hand extended, his posture rigid and unyielding. The unspoken demand for a response hung in the air.
“Yes. Of course,” she agreed quickly, her voice slightly too eager.
“Then those reasons are your closure. I have my closure too, so we don’t have anything left to discuss,” he stated flatly.
“You’re being unreasonable,” she pouted, her tone whiny and grating.
Fuck, he thought, had he ever found her indulgent behaviour anything but intolerable?
“I’m not,” he countered. “It’s been over two years, and now you show up here looking for closure because you saw me at a club?”
“I thought maybe you had changed, and we could discuss things,” she said, her expression hopeful yet fragile.
“I haven’t,” he said bluntly.
“You haven’t what?” she asked, confusion flickering in her eyes.
“Changed,” he clarified. “If this will speed things along—you were right to end our engagement. We weren’t compatible in the ways that matter for building a life together. Good call.”
Flavia sighed dramatically, her tone mimicking the exaggerated emotion of women in the period piece Sorinah loved watching.
“You’re impossible. I don’t know why I thought we could have a productive conversation—one where you take ownership for what went wrong between us. You were addicted to your work…”
Aldrich tuned out as she droned on. Christ! Not this old talk again.
Flavia reached into her bag and pulled out the burgundy box he’d presented her with almost four years ago. Her fingers traced its surface before she lifted her gaze to meet his, her expression a mix of resignation and lingering hurt. “I should have returned this to you when I ended things.”
“It isn’t necessary,” he said, his voice edged with impatience. “You’ve had it all this time.”
“No, I don’t think I will,” she replied, her tone firm.
“I don’t want the damn ring,” Aldrich snapped, struggling to keep his composure. “What the hell would I do with it? Recycle it?”
“You don’t have to be rude about it,” she said, wrinkling her nose in annoyance.
“I don’t want or need the ring. Just take it and go,” he said, shooing her away with a dismissive wave of his hands.
“This was a waste of time,” she stated, her frustration evident.
He couldn’t agree more.
“It didn’t have to be a waste of time,” she continued, her voice tinged with disappointment.
“I learned from our conversation. I saw the way you were looking at the woman you were dancing with at the club. Maybe our discussion could have taught you something so you wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past, but it looks like you’re determined to repeat them. ”
Her parting remarks left a lingering sting, but Aldrich brushed them aside, unwilling to let them cloud his focus.
After Flavia left, he pushed her visit from his mind, intent on preserving the morning for his work. With only a few hours left before back-to-back meetings swallowed his afternoon, he couldn’t afford distractions.
Bernard, ever the email-and-Teams communicator, kept their interactions efficient and remote, allowing them to work in seamless tandem throughout the morning.
Then came the latest message.
Your twelve-thirty is here.
Aldrich checked his calendar, puzzled. A 12:30-1 block had appeared, unannounced and unnamed, as if it had materialized out of thin air. He began typing a sharp message to Bernard, demanding to know who was being thrust into his schedule, when two sharp knocks cut through the silence.
Just by the sound of the knock, Aldrich knew it wasn’t Bernard—it lacked the crisp, practiced cadence he expected, instead carrying a light, almost playful tone that echoed softly against the heavy oak door. He had a hunch about who it might be but brushed it off as wishful thinking.
Still, he called out, “Come in.”
“Hey DH,” Sorinah said as the door creaked open, her smile brief and tense before she nervously chewed her lip.
“Good afternoon,” he replied, leaning back from his desk but staying seated.
She closed the door behind her with a soft click.
The knot in his stomach loosened at the sight of her, though unease lingered beneath the surface. His visual inspection of her didn’t outwardly reveal the conclusion she had reached.
Sorinah stood as the picture of confidence, her newly cropped pixie cut accentuating the fierceness of her features while softening something unspoken in her demeanour.
If he hadn’t been so fixated on drinking in every detail about her, he might have missed the slight hesitation in her shoulders before she straightened them.
Aldrich wasn’t sure whether to take it as a positive sign, but he remained in his seat, though every fibre of him yearned to close the distance between them.
He had no idea what he would do until he saw her, but in that moment, he knew—no matter what she had come to tell him about their relationship, he would try anything to make it work.
Sorinah mattered too much to him, and he wasn’t giving her up without a fight.
The tension in the air was palpable, a mix of hope and fear, yet something about her poised stance hinted at a challenge he was oddly eager to face.
Aldrich knew Sorinah wasn’t scheduled to be in this part of the world, so her presence meant she had flown out specifically to see him. He braced himself to hear her out.
“I appreciate you sticking to your word and giving me space to work this all out in my head,” she said, her tone sombre.
He nodded, the weight of her words hanging in the air. The formality between them felt unnatural, tinged with an unease he couldn’t shake.
“Are you gonna keep treating me like a big bad wolf? Or are you coming in or staying holding up my door?” he asked, the reference to their shared history landing with a mix of humour and tension.
She smirked, her dark red hooded sweater, black tights, and ankle boots giving her an air of casual defiance. “You know you are a pain in the ass. You couldn’t let me get my spiel out without getting all DH on me, huh?”
She moved across the room, stopping behind the chair in front of his desk, her posture a mix of hesitation and challenge.